Gentle Voice

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Beggar’s Banquet

Any
day above ground is a good day. It’s pith description. A telling tale, this
adage.

The night deepens with my recollections of the day. The cicadas are in-play
and in-sync. I’m still alive. This thing feeds on reassurance so here it is: I’m
still up. Still breathing. Still recollecting. Still writing. I’m sure you had a
good day too; if you’re still up and about it’s been a good day and hopefully,
a goodnight.

I’m in my little refuge. A nominal room. Minimal. A bed, a
mattress, blankets and a pillow. Not much to look at. Nothing much to harp
about. That’s what I thought too.

I’d
hungered. So I slid out in the alleys to catch a quick bite, a Kolkatan-Roll. And
there he was.

A man I know and do not know. I’ve seen him along the ghats, and
in the narrow passages.

He must be in his sixties. I’m not sure. I don’t ask. Fear
of aging? Maybe. I’d pass him in the narrow corridors and hear him go “Namaste
Sir. Some change please?”

The
sheer fear and panic of being accosted in such a direct manner urging your self-declared
sense of inherent-generosity into instant action used to keep me away,
reactively. I’d shuffled my feet as fast as they could go to escape this sting,
this entrapment.

Obviously none of it was my doing.

Why, it was all his fault. Why
can’t he be more patient? More gentle? More beggarly? More in need of me then
me in need of him?

He
even spoke some English. He must do better. That’s how I was pinning him down,
to avoid the unnecessary burden of looking a hapless man in the eye, and
confronting his reality, or mine, as it were. But mostly we look away. It’s a case
of out of sight and out of fright.

You
see, we’d love to think we’re kind, giving, and concerned. That’s mostly true until
our generosity is really tested. And here altruism is a lovely cliché that
probably works in a place far, far away where nobody needs it and everybody’s
giving it. Fortunately we don’t dwell in such glass houses, or maybe we do but
the towers are too high-up to really zoom-in on what’s happening down-below.

And
down-below our average world of comings, goings and mundane happenings is a
stark-subterranean world of gritty reality that comes alive when the streets are
deserted.

Where men find refuge in the neglect; amidst the various nooks and
corners, as they look forward to a night of shelter under shuttered-shops and
no-man’s walkways.

Used old cardboards mattress the cemented floors, and the
shawl that drapes them during the day becomes a warm blanket on nights like
these.

The tattered old bag he slings over his shoulder becomes his pillow, and
lying down on it, his head rests, as his body keeps still, to keep in the
warmth and keep out the cold. And it’s been getting colder by the night, as
winter peaks around these parts.

The
day time sun’s been warm, suitably, and the winds don’t gust too strong in the
alleys of this city.

There’re the neighborhood dogs keeping him company.

And an
old cow or two always sleeps bang in the middle of his street, chewing cud.

Those
with the energy or without any makeshift beddings, go down to the burning
ghats, drawing warmth from the cremation pyres, and the company of people
grieving or just mulling about.

Anywhere
else in the world and this would indeed be one strange sight.

But here’s it’s a
daily affair.

It’s
also a coveted prize. There’re dogs that viciously bark away the competition,
zealously guarding this piece of prime-time real-estate turf. Goats and cows
hang around the open-chula-shrine-stove of seasonal sadhus. There’re people who
sleep rough all over, but personal-vibes or the lack of it seems to either pull
us toward a particular individual or push us away.

For me it was a bit of both;
I’d been initially pushed away, and this was three years back. Three years
since I was pushed away from his presence, and now I’m being pulled back in.

I guess
he’s been the same person, really, and maybe I’ve changed.

We don’t know each
other, other than each other’s faces. Our conversations, if one can call it
that, is a brief “Hello. Namaste.

Thank you. Take care. Good day. Good night.”

I’ve
a feeling he doesn’t say it for the measly little change I offer, which he kindly
and graciously accepts. And then I’m all the more embarrassed by my own misery,
running away from the scene of the crime as soon as it’s committed.

For
his part, he’s been noticeably clam, and now ever so quiet. I think he saves
the silences for me, and I wonder if I encouraged it. But he’ll smile, bless
him, and extend his pointed greetings.

I think he’s just good natured, and what
I once saw as impatience is nothing more than an earnest call, which he’s
stopped calling. I wonder if I’d tried to help him or bribe him. In any case I think
of him a lot.

He’s healthy for his age, and though he sleeps rough, he’s one of
those neat fellows who keeps clean in the dirt. I think the river makes his
life cleaner, if not healthier.

Three years and this is what he has: a shawl, a
lungi, and a kurta, all white and a jolla that he carries them in. During the
days I don’t see him much but often, at nights like tonight, he likes to sleep
on a walkway-pavement next to a house facing a Hindu temple in the neighborhood I’m
sheltering in.

On
a particular night a couple of weeks back he was positively alight. I’d gone to
the neighborhood chaiwallah for a nightly cuppa that’s become a ritual. On the
way back we’d met.

He was just about to settle in for the night, when he saw me
and said out loud, “Sir, today good day for me! Goodnight Sir!” His face was just
one big happy smile like the emoticon.

I left him another measly offering, and was
considerably less ashamed owing to his infectious state of utter delight. I still
recall that night as I walked away feeling quite happy myself, for the visible
fact that he looked pleased, and happy. I wondered what it was.

The possibilities
fiddling my head. I should ask. But I didn’t. Now the moment’s passed.

I’ve
way too many walls in me and not enough ladders.

But
he didn’t look that happy tonight. And again I asked nothing. The walls are too
big. The ladders too small. And bridges non-existent.

My boss’s
right-hand man (incidentally his left-hand limps and I still haven’t made inquiries)
had wanted me to return one of the extra-blankets I’d been using, as the house
was full, and I’d returned it mumbling about the increasing cold.

So I sat, looking
around, thinking my bed’s bare from the missing blanket, and that the little room’s
pretty plain, in a very self-pitying sort of way where we look for what is
never enough and find justification in the way we are and vindication in the
way we act.

The
hunger came and I left promptly, with a hundred-rupee bill in my pajamas, and I
came across my man.

He didn’t
look that happy tonight, as he was that night of the smiling emoticon.

Maybe I was
reading too much in his appearance. Or maybe I was projecting my own unhappiness.

Perhaps he’d a particularly long day. A rough day perhaps, and now a rough
night looms large and cold. When did he first go homeless? Does he have a
family? Is he even homeless? Has he renounced it all?

Was it choice? How long has
he been living this life? What does he feel? How does he see the world? My head
was running wild. I was amok with questions skirting everywhere.

I sped
my walk. More so to give him space. Plus I was again embarrassed. Ashamed at my
one-blanket-less predicament. Frustrated at my many needs. Aghast at my
wantonness. Undeserving. Worthless.

A two-legged creep of a freak wailing about
wrong shoes in the company of a one-legged man. And then it dawned on me; that
this ranks as one of the most egotistical comparisons I’ve ever made.

What presumption!
What a self-aggrandizing dastardly bastard! What makes me think I’m more
favorably endowed by the gods than this man who sleeps rough in the smoothest
way you’ll ever see a man sleep?

It’s
the relaxed sleep of a child, or the knowing slumber of the sage. There’s more than
a sense of peace in it.

More than an acceptance of reality. And a look of contentment.
It’s complete. There’s no struggle. No strife. There’s no need to find the sweet
spot that comforts because everything is sweet and comfortable. Where I coil
and go fetal he sleeps straight; a still head gazing directly above. Or am I romanticizing
his sleep?

I approach
him as quietly as I can, calling out “Bhaiji?” He’s upright in a jiffy, and
gives me a folded-namasteji. I hand over a plastic bag with a vegetable-roll
and some change in it, bidding him goodnight. He gives me a smile, thanks, and a
goodnight. I’m again embarrassed by my miserly offering, but tonight that
feeling is invaded by another; relief with gratitude.

I think the relief comes
from seeing him getting by fine in his world, easing my own guilt, and the gratitude
for making me see, however brief, what a seemingly hapless man’s generosity can
be; and that alone makes me respect him, discouraging all thoughts of probing in
and pining on, even if it means silencing the curious cat.

The
lights are out. The power’s gone. I may be awake but I hope he’s not. I hope he’s
indeed having a goodnight.